Skiing is truly a three-dimensional, open skilled and unpredictable sport. The skier is constantly pulled in different directions by gravity and inertial forces as they move through the turn. This means that the core is extremely important in managing those forces and allowing the skier to maintain structural alignment throughout the turn and regain a strong alignment quickly after a mistake.
But common approaches to core training are two-dimensional and ineffective for an open-skilled sport like skiing. The skier needs exercises that solicit the core through full body movements that rely on the core to stabilize and to tie the upper and lower body together in a coordinated manner.
One of the most common stabilizing patterns of the core in skiing is the cross-body diagonal pattern of muscle and connective tissue which drapes from the shoulder on the inside of the turning arc to the hip on the outside of the arc. In his seminar work, Anatomy Trains, author Thomas Myers refers to this as the Front Functional Line.
You can imagine this line of muscle and connective tissue working from inside shoulder to outside hip / thigh in this photo.
If this line of pull is weak or dysfunctional, the skier will end up rotated and lose traction on the snow. One of the best bodyweight exercises to train this movement or stabilization pattern is the CST Leg Swoop. Instead of trying to describe it here, you can view this detailed tutorial of the CST Leg Swoop bodyweight exercise on YouTube.
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